Max Lucado Daily: OUR INHERITANCE
When you were born into Christ, you were placed in God’s royal family. And since you are a part of the family, you have access to the family blessings. All of them. Scripture says, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance” (Ephesians 1:11 NIV).
Surprised? You ain’t heard nuttin’ yet! The apostle Paul described the value of your portfolio: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17 NIV). We are joint heirs with Christ. We share the same inheritance as Christ! We don’t inherit leftovers. We don’t wear hand-me-downs. In the traditions of Paul’s day, the firstborn son received a double portion while the rest of the siblings divvied up the remainder. Not so in the family of Christ. His portion is our portion! Whatever he has, we have!
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 8:22-39
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Read: 2 Corinthians 12:6–10
If I had a mind to brag a little, I could probably do it without looking ridiculous, and I’d still be speaking plain truth all the way. But I’ll spare you. I don’t want anyone imagining me as anything other than the fool you’d encounter if you saw me on the street or heard me talk.
7-10 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
INSIGHT:
Paul possessed “a thorn in [his] flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7), which prayer did not eliminate. Whatever it was, it was painful and physical. Some Bible teachers believe it was an eye disease, since elsewhere Paul refers to having eye problems (Gal. 4:15; 6:11) and that others might have treated him “with contempt or scorn” (4:14) because of an illness he had when he “first preached the gospel” to the Galatians (4:13). Paul’s enemies seemed to ride him because of his physical limitations. I imagine them asserting, “God doesn’t even answer his prayers or heal him” (see 2 Cor. 12:8–10). Nevertheless, Paul viewed his limitations as a reflective mirror to magnify God’s greatness.
This Gift
By David Roper
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
A number of years ago I wrote an essay about my collection of canes, staffs, and walking sticks and mused that I might someday graduate to a walker. Well, the day has come. A combination of back issues and peripheral neuropathy has left me pushing a three-wheel walker. I can’t hike; I can’t fish; I can’t do many of the things that used to bring me great joy.
I’m trying to learn, however, that my limitation, whatever it may be, is a gift from God, and it is with this gift that I am to serve Him. This gift and not another. This is true of all of us, whether our limits are emotional, physical, or intellectual. Paul was so bold as to say that he boasted in his weakness for it was in weakness that God's power was revealed in him (2 Cor. 12:9).
Lord, I trust You to give me everything I need for today.
Seeing our so-called liabilities this way enables us to go about our business with confidence and courage. Rather than complain, feel sorry for ourselves, or opt out, we make ourselves available to God for His intended purposes.
I have no idea what He has in mind for you and me, but we shouldn’t worry about that. Our task today is just to accept things as they are and to be content, knowing that in the love, wisdom, and providence of God this moment is as good as it can possibly be.
Dear Lord, I know that You are good and You love me. I trust You to give me everything I need for today.
Contentment enables you to grow where God has planted you.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Submitting to God’s Purpose
I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. —1 Corinthians 9:22
A Christian worker has to learn how to be God’s man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, “If only I were somewhere else!” All of God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God’s almighty grace or His mighty Word in them. Paul’s whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact— “…Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
“I chose you…” (John 15:16). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose— that He may be able to say, “This is My man, and this is My woman.” We have to be in God’s hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.
Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you “turn aside…to the right or the left…” (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“I have chosen you” (John 15:16). Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you. My Utmost for His Highest, October 25, 837 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
There For You When You Fall - #7772
Our son-in-law is pretty much a natural when it comes to sports. And if there's something he hasn't done before, he's anxious to give it a try. I was there for the first time he tried to jet-ski. You've probably seen those little water machines that look like a baby snowmobile. They're a lot of fun, but it takes some skill to keep it balanced. He handled it pretty well for a while, but it was probably inevitable that he would eventually fall off on his first ride. Of course, the jet-ski kept going-and I expected it to take off without him. But instead, that jet-ski is designed to start going in a circle near you-and it circles for you until you can get back on. It's nice to know it will be there when you fall off.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "There For You When You Fall."
Jeremiah, one of the great prophets of God, also knew about failure. You can tell from our word for today from the Word of God. It begins with Lamentations 3:19. "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet I call this to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." Familiar words maybe-sometimes survival words.
Jeremiah is thinking about the times he fell off and how those times have made him feel. Discouraged, depressed, like "What's the use?" He calls it a soul that is downcast by his failures. But every new day there is the Lord circling near him to pick him up.
When I saw how that jet-ski operated, I couldn't help but think of how our Lord has dealt with me; deals with all of us. It could be that even now you're feeling crushed by a feeling of failure. You've let the Lord down, you've let people you love down, you've let yourself down. Maybe you've done some things you never thought you would do. Maybe you've broken some promises you thought you would keep. In some way, you've fallen-and you may feel like you're just going to stay down. In fact, at times like this, your feelings say, "Look, you fell off-and the Lord's gone on without you."
Wrong! "His compassions never fail." That's what it says, "His compassions never fail." They don't fail even when you do. No matter how badly or how often you have failed, "They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." No failure needs to last more than a day. God does not want you to carry the wreckage from yesterday into your today. He has new mercies for this new day, and His great love is unconditional. What will sink you won't be that God won't forgive you. It's that you won't bring it to the cross and get up and accept a new beginning from your Savior.
It's Satan that keeps pointing to your past. The Bible calls him "the accuser". Jesus is pointing to your future. It's the devil's lies that God has left you; that He doesn't love you when you're like this; that it's over.
Today, your Lord's right there. He is circling faithfully. He stopped when you fell off and He's been lovingly waiting to pick you up and get you off to a fresh new start.
